


next to me

by raleighocean



Series: An Original Horror Story [20]
Category: American Horror Story
Genre: 2019, Comfort, F/F, witch!Wilhemina Venable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26101828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raleighocean/pseuds/raleighocean
Summary: For Mina, it was hard to adjust to her new life, but as she felt how Raleigh moved by her side, her presence ever so soothing after a few months, she thought she was going to be fine. It would take a bit more time to Wilhemina to finally open up, however, but knowing more about her partner was a good plan in the meantime.
Relationships: Wilhemina Venable/Original Character(s)
Series: An Original Horror Story [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1305791
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	next to me

Placing the book in her thigh, open by the page she was reading and adding notes to, Raleigh's eyes wandered to the ceiling. There was a flickering light that was bothering her to no end, but it wasn't her position to go and fix it. She pushed her glasses on top of her head, letting go a harsher breathe to ease the knot in her brain. No, she needed to fix it because she was really going nuts if she had to put up with it for five more minutes. 

Her eyes darted around the waiting room, empty since it was past mid-day. Even the nurse-made-secretary was gone, being called by one of the doctors. 

After a few mumbled words, Raleigh hummed content when the flickering stopped. In other circumstances she would have propped herself in one of the chairs to give it a touch with her own hands, but she wasn’t at home and she didn’t want to risk being kicked out of the clinic. She could go back peacefully to her reading, but instead she busied herself pressing her fingers against an invisible wrinkle in the coat over her legs to smooth it. The fabric from the dark duffle coat was perfectly taken-care of, so it was impossible that there was an imperfection. 

She couldn't think less from Wilhemina, to be honest. 

Her mind got distracted again when the nurse came out from the door where her  _ girlfriend  _ had disappeared almost an hour ago. Or that's what Raleigh thought. The nurse smiled warmly at her, knowingly, and then went back to her spot behind the desk. 

"Your sweetheart will be done in…about twenty," she was an old woman, her accent thick that reminded Raleigh of someone from her childhood. "Today's a hard day."

"A coffee would be a good idea then?" Raleigh smiled sideways, a conversation they were used to having. 

"The loveliest," the nurse smiled at that, watching the woman stand up. "Do you want me to keep her coat and your book while you are at it?" 

When the doctor opened the door for her, Wilhemina thought she was going to pass out at any given second. Not even her cane was enough to support her whole weight, her hands and her legs felt shaky after the session. She still wasn’t used to that new doctor so everything was way worse; but when she looked up from the floor and to where the chatter sounded, a veil of calmness fell over her softly to make her feel a bit better.

Seeing someone waiting for her after her appointments was truly something else. Back in Los Angeles, she always had to get a taxi home, but since she moved to New Orleans that wasn’t the case and it was such a...nice change. Not that she would ever say something about it, but seeing Raleigh waiting for her there meant the world for her. 

Her chatter with the nurse at the front desk ended right when they were in sight and Wilhemina felt her body, her new found  _ magic _ , wanting to reach for Raleigh and let the woman hold her close to her warmth. 

“I’ll see you in two weeks, miss Venable,” she barely could hear the doctor but she nodded in agreement. “Remember to not strain yourself for a couple of days, then you can keep with your usual schedule.”

Wilhemina barely nodded in response, seeing Raleigh walking towards her with a calm expression in her face but the worry all over her hazel eyes. The doctor already gave her the next appointment so the only thing she did was bid farewell to him, letting her girlfriend help her with the coat and then they were gone from the clinic. It took more than just that, but Mina was too tired and everything displayed before her in unrelated chunks of information, missing how Raleigh had to fill in a couple papers quickly or how she offered her arm to her, which she took without a doubt.

Once they were safe in the car, which only reminded Wilhemina of her new boss because the Coven didn’t have another car yet aside from Cordelia's and Madison’s, she couldn’t help but sigh loudly. Without a word, a coffee was handed out for her and her eyes went to the woman starting the engine. How could she be like that? She didn’t even say a word, she didn’t even ask for something, but she had it between her hands and the warmth from the plastic cup was already inviting her to indulge.

“I fucking swear to God if Cordelia doesn’t invest in an off-road next, I’m starting a revolution,” Raleigh’s voice was far from annoyed, more like playful while she tried to accommodate again the seat. “I still can’t picture how she can drive this posh ass car into the swamp and not get robbed overnight.”

It made Wilhemina chuckle lightly, taking a sip to her sweetened coffee and leaning back into the seat with a soft grunt of displeasure. If Raleigh, in her way after buckling herself up, seemed to hear her, Mina didn’t know, but she got her cheek caressed with two fingers before getting a quick kiss there. When her girlfriend finally drove off the parking lot, she took her time to just relax there as much as Raleigh’s driving skills let her. It wasn’t that she was a bad driver, but it made Mina feel like her father was driving: messy, unexpected and with too many swear words - at least with her could hear a variation, when she was really mad and switched languages. 

However, after a few blocks, Wilhemina couldn’t help but look at the woman driving in awe. Her posture was a bit rigid and her face was almost marbled, focusing way too hard in the task at hand. Was she making the effort to be calm and collected to not bother her? Raleigh biting her lower lip harshly when the car before them made a right without the turn signal was enough response to that.

After her appointments Wilhemina despised listening to music, brain to foggy to actually enjoy it without having a headache, but the silence not being filled with the usual monologue was a bit unsettling. So she looked around the car, finding out the book Raleigh had been reading while waiting for her and taking it just to find out she couldn’t read the cover at all.

“What are you reading?” frowning for her was easy, still trying to make some sense of the title at least, finding herself feeling how her magic was vibrating slightly.

“Oh, I found that old buddy in Cordelia’s office the other day,” the question visibly relaxed Raleigh, but then they made eye contact and Mina discovered a glint of guilt in her eyes. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t have been there to begin with, but! In my defense, it was calling me, so please just…”

“Honey, please, you know I won’t say a word,” Mina couldn’t find herself strong enough to make a snarky comment about this, so she only watched Raleigh relax at her soft words. “Now, are you going to tell me or should I put whatever Goode has in the music player? I bet it’s Stevie Nicks, twenty for that?”

After that joke and Raleigh giving her twenty dollars, because of course it was that -  _ ‘why did you said it was Taylor Swift?’ ‘Listen, I just hoped it wasn’t Stevie for once.’  _ -, Wilhemina indulged once again in what her girlfriend was telling her. Just hearing her voice explaining things made her feel at ease, giving a ‘mhm’ and maybe a remark when it was needed, because for sure she didn’t know shit about ancient magic and for the time being that was going to remain like that.

Also, it wasn’t difficult to make the woman talk your ears off if you knew which topics to touch.

The rest of the trip back to the Academy was made like that, sharing something it would be soon locked again in Raleigh’s brain once they passed past the fence. Which was accurate, because once they were crossing the door the book was nowhere to be seen - it was hidden in the front of Raleigh’s sweatpants, like a kid that’s hiding sweets from her parents - and her whole demeanour shrunk heavily until she could barely notice she was there at all if her girlfriend wasn’t holding her arm.

She didn’t like that part of coming to her new home, but for today, she wasn’t going to comment on it.

Making their way towards Wilhemina’s assigned room, the dread she was feeling was bigger and bigger, and she tried to brace herself not only in Raleigh’s arm but in projecting her new found magic around Ray’s to make it to her destination. And when Raleigh closed the door behind them, Wilhemina could finally breathe. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she let go of her cane and covered her face with both hands, her tiredness hitting her even harder than she thought. 

"Mina?" Raleigh's voice is so tiny and full of worry that made Mina take a peek in between her fingers to look at her. "Do you want something to eat? I was gonna get some cereal and maybe you were hungry too."

"I'm not, thank you," she sighed and finally put down her hands to her lap. "But can you do me a favor?"

The way Raleigh's features lighted up was something Wilhemina wasn't ready for in any possible way, but she swallowed the lump in her throat to finally say what she wanted. It was obvious her girlfriend wanted to be of help to her, even when she already did that in her own silent way, but to be vocal about it...what a wonderful thing it was to do.

"I need some painkillers and some help with getting in my pajamas," Wilhemina looked directly at her and now her girlfriend was closing the door again, walking to her wardrobe to get the clothes first. "And...can you stay with me? Now, tonight...Just stay, please?"

She felt shy to ask Raleigh that, way too shy when they've been going out for four months now, but she was feeling day by day that this was worth it. So she was trying to 'woman up' with her feelings, reaching in between all the vines that had been protecting her for years so she could return what was given to her. Wilhemina shied away from Raleigh's eyes while waiting for her response, warmth installing in her cheeks.

"I'll stay with you all the time you want, lovely," and Raleigh's hands are unbuttoning her shirt with care and Mina starts to help her with that, making her move to unzip her skirt and helping her out, arms circling her neck to gain some support. "Even when you'll doze off to my incessant chatter."

Her chuckle was so pure that it made Mina want to hear it more often, her girlfriend leaving the room to get the food and the medicine after pressing a kiss to her temple. 

After buttoning the pajamas' shirt up, she pushed herself up to the bed until she was under the covers, letting the mattress to swallow her a bit and finding herself soon in a more comfortable position in spite of the throbbing and constant pain in her back. While waiting, she played with the too long sleeve from her shirt and it made her feel warm and cozy again. Raleigh didn't ask for her clothes back, the pajamas she was wearing lent to her back when they met in Los Angeles, and she didn't feel like actually giving them...so now she had in her possession a way too big pajama shirt and way too long pajama pants, which belonged to the woman she was learning to love.

The thought made her close her eyes and, at the same time, to Raleigh to appear through the bedroom door with her hands full of things...Oberon over her shoulders like a parrot of some sorts and on-growing puppy Sidonia walking a bit dumbly at her tail. Leaving everything in the nightstand - water, painkillers carefully hidden in her sweatpants’ pocket, a cereal bowl over Raleigh’s laptop and a notebook with a bitten pencil between its pages -, the tall woman crouched down enough to let the calico cat jump over the empty space of the bed, soon making his way towards his owner and cuddling her like they didn’t have a never ending on-going war between both. Wilhemina had enough time to scratch him under his head before heavy five months old Sidonia was now on the bed too, going to get the same cuddles from the human her human liked so much...and maybe try to catch Oberon’s tail, like always.

“I couldn’t leave them out,” was the only response Raleigh gave her, Wilhemina looking at her while Sidonia bit her fingers playfully, as she made her way to the spot reserved for her...now a bit tinier than she planned, but getting herself as close as her girlfriend as she could. “I’m not a monster, y’know? They wanted to give you snuggles too.”

“I won’t be surprised if in some months she starts behaving like a person, I mean, this bitch already does but your poor drooling ball is still a baby,” Wilhemina poked Oberon in the middle of the forehead upon saying that, Raleigh pushing Sidonia a bit with her hand to make her go cuddle against her own stomach to not bother Mina. 

“Oh c’mon,” Oberon finally moved to let Ray get closer and Mina took advantage of this to finally take the medicine, then finding herself moving closer to her girlfriend so she could rest her head on her shoulder. “I’m not that bad at handling animals to give them such traumatic change.”

That Raleigh kissed her forehead automatically, putting a lock of red hair behind her ear, only gave Wilhemina more of that sweet love she was getting in daily doses. A natural thing that led to a new silence, one warm and soft that was barely broken when the woman cuddling her put a hand under the covers suddenly and pulled the book out of her pants, where it was hidden all this time. Her innocent yet mischievous expression only made Wilhemina to chuckle, closing her eyes to rub a bit, glad today was make-up free. When she opened her eyes again, Raleigh’s hand was fixing the collar of her shirt absentmindedly.

Maybe it was now a good moment to just...try what she wanted to do, the tiredness of her body and mind giving her a little push, new found courage also pushing to the tips of her fingers to move her hand and resting it in Raleigh’s chest. 

Hand, that needless to say, was kissed and taken hostage.

“Can I ask you something?” she felt the approval hum vibrate ever so softly through her connection with Ray, face to that area between her chest and her shoulder. “Where...where did you grow up?”

“Here,” Raleigh’s answer was immediate and it sounded a bit automatic, a thing that was noticed right away. “Didn’t my speech give it away?”

“That much I can tell,” Mina wasn’t in the mood for teasing her, but she really wanted to know more...something that wasn’t a cold automatic response. “I meant your childhood home, before being trapped here like a Hogwarts’ student. Was it a nice place?”

And if her girlfriend was tense, now Wilhemina seemed to sense how she gave in, as if Raleigh was trying to hold part of her weight to not get swallowed by the comfort of the bed. Mina had found recently that Raleigh always tried to seem lighter or smaller than she actually was, physically and mentally talking, and that along with how she presented herself every time she was in the Academy didn’t settle right with Wilhemina at all.

“Jefferson Parish, Kenner,” sighing, so deep and heavy, she started with that tone people got when they said something that they’ve repeated for a really long time. “We lived in the north, near the lake, and well...for me was the best place ever on this Earth,” Raleigh played with Wilhemina’s hostage hand to put her palm against hers to size them, the latina’s hand easily being a bigger even when Mina’s fingers were long enough to touch Ray’s fingertips. “It wasn’t a big fancy house, just a small apartment with enough room for three to live in...so you can see my surprise and uneasiness when I got here.”

“You seem pretty much used to it by now,” and it was the truth, because Raleigh was the only one along Cordelia without having troubles getting around the house. Even the staff, those young girls she was starting to know little by little, sometimes seemed out of place.

“That’s what I call self-preservation mechanism,” with a low chuckle, Raleigh intertwined their fingers. “I hated so much being in here, I kinda still do, because sometimes it gives me the creeps that everything is so...white, almost felt antiseptic and sometimes gets really silent,” she was lost for a second and then she focused again on their linked hands. “At my parents’ there was always something playing in the radio or the smell of food, when my mother tried to pull a new recipe,” another soft laugh. “Warm colored walls, an awkward  _ Virgen María  _ picture that my grandma gave us on a shelf by the biggest jelly-bean jar ever, our shoes all over the entrance...mhm, that was my childhood home. It felt like people lived there...here was, is, always too organized.”

Hearing her girlfriend talk so fondly of something was good for a change, and Mina was afraid of falling asleep to that, because it wasn’t boring at all but it was filling her with more warmth that she usually could handle.

“It sounds like a nice place,” she found herself wanting to visit, to be there and feel all of that, because it was filling Raleigh’s features with contentment just by talking about it. “Even with the virgin there, watching over you each time you picked candy.”

“It totally was,” Raleigh didn’t lose the smile, not even when she said the next words. “I frankly don’t know if the building is even there anymore, to be honest, I...well, my mother moved eventually from there and a few years later the hurricane happened, so…”

“The memory will always be with you, and that’s important,” Wilhemina was quick to complete that, because she didn’t know yet much information about Raleigh’s not immediate whereabouts but she knew for a fact that parents weren't in the equation as of now. 

"That's for sure," Mina moved her head enough to look at her and press a kiss to her neck, making the other woman hum content for that.

In her mind, Wilhemina had too many things to possibly ask, too many things that she wanted to know, but seeing that talking about something as normal as her childhood put a soft expression in Raleigh's features...she decided to maybe ask one more thing about it.

One more thing because she was feeling the painkillers starting to kick in finally, not being confident in staying awake much longer than probably the answer and some more seconds in between falling asleep and holding to the present.

That plus hearing Raleigh talk, was actually making wonders to her mood, starting to push to the back of her mind the pain and the discomfort.

"I wonder now if you were a calm kid or a troublemaker," Wilhemina chuckled sleepily with the thought, freeing her hand from the grasp of her girlfriend to pass it over her stomach and hug her. "I feel you were like the first ones, those blessed babies that don't cry much," she yawned a bit and it made Sidonia yawn in response, tired already from trying to catch Oberon's tail. "My nephew is like that, such an angel."

Wilhemina has yet to talk about her own family, but Raleigh didn't seem to pressure her into anything. She only let go of a soft laugh and kissed her forehead lovingly, caressing her arm.

"Oh good lord, my mother wished that too," another good laugh blooming in her chest had Wilhemina's new found magic tingle in response. "I was a hurricane and an earthquake thrown together in a mixer, my father even made up a nickname just because," Wilhemina couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, giving up and resting better in her lover's arm, still listening to her. "The only times I managed to actually sit down were when my mother was reading for me some new book she found at work or one of her or my father's old magic books."

"I don't even know why you don't give that nerdy vibe if you were read a lot and I know you still do that," she managed to mumble, mouth half pressed against Raleigh's chest at this point. "I suppose it is that."

"My father used to say 'I was born to fight an army with the force of my frown'," Wilhemina didn't see that, but upon saying that Raleigh actually frowned, giving a scaring stare to a heavy sleep Sidonia. "My mother was more of the opinion that I took any 'bad girl juju' out of them and made it my own. I remember once I fought a girl because she kept giving me a stinky eye and didn't let go until someone pointed out she had just a tic in her left eye."

"A feisty one I see, Ocean," Wilhemina giggled at the little snippet of the adventures of little Ray, which in her hazy mind couldn't picture how she looked like.

Raleigh looked down at Wilhemina for a second, surprised to have her in that mood. She was always in check with her feelings, without a crack on her whole demeanour, but having her girlfriend being so comfortable around her was truly a blessing. Raleigh didn’t need Wilhemina to constantly tell her or show her she loved her back, she was confident enough to know she did even when at times she asked herself how she possibly loved her.

So the only thing that she did in response was to kiss the crown of Wilhemina’s head with care and give her a new caress to her cheek with her thumb.

“Oh, you don’t even know the start of it,” Raleigh laughed again, softly, to keep talking. “I had too much energy when I was a kid, then I grew up and that energy went all to my brain and-”

And there, it’s when Raleigh heard Wilhemina’s deep breath.

Falling asleep that easily surprised her a second time, but after the heavy day the woman in her arms had it was probably something to expect. Raleigh smiled to herself, making sure Wilhemina was really asleep, and then she raised her hand to use her Telekinesis to get her notebook, laptop and cereals from the nightstand. She could use one hand perfectly to keep studying, it wasn’t that hard, right?

But after an hour of almost exploding because, of course, she couldn’t take notes and holding the book with one hand, Raleigh decided to just lay there with her lover.

Maybe she could even try to take a nap too.


End file.
